


Martyr's Fall: The Earning of Wings

by leonidaslion



Series: Angelwings [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dark, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-23
Updated: 2011-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-15 00:59:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonidaslion/pseuds/leonidaslion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So Dean had a little demon problem, and now he has a little Rachel problem...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

At first he shrugged it off as the result of too much sun. He and Sam had spent the mid-August day in the middle of Aaron Daughtry’s ranch digging a pit to trap the black dogs that had been ripping his horses—not to mention a couple field hands and a tourist—apart. Texas wasn’t a temperate area at the best of times, and with the sun beating down relentlessly, Dean figured that it had been over a hundred degrees out there. If looking at his brother was any indication of the state of things, then Dean would be lucky if he could stand to put his shirt back on once the nerve endings in his back and chest woke up.

“Hey, Lobster Boy!” Sam looked up, wincing, and Dean tossed him the bottle of Aloe extract he’d begged off of Aaron. “Oil up.”

Sam scrunched up his nose in distaste. “I hate the way this stuff feels,” he complained.

“Yeah, well, you shoulda thought of that before you signed us up for this little Texan barbeque.” Dean shifted his shoulders, trying to ignore the creeping burn there—oh yeah, this was gonna hurt—and turned his head a little to hide his grin of amusement at Sam’s annoyance. Kid never could stand anything slimy. Which, of course, was why he had sometimes found his sheets full of Vaseline whenever Dean felt things were getting a little too boring. Turned out Sam shrieked like a girl if he climbed into a bed full of the stuff.

“You’re going to need to use it too, you know. Shit, that’s cold!”

Dean looked back at his brother, who had squeezed a piddling amount of the lotion onto his hands and was gingerly dabbing it on his chest, and rolled his eyes. “It’s gonna take you all night to finish if you do it like that. Here.” He snatched back the aloe and dumped about a quarter of the bottle into his hand. “Turn around and I’ll get your back,” he ordered.

Sam complied begrudgingly. “You better be careful, jerk. Don’t just—Fuck!”

Dean clamped one aloe-coated hand down on his brother’s shoulder to keep him from bolting. “Come on, Samantha, take it like a man.”

Sam glanced at him over one fire-red shoulder. “It’s your turn next, you know,” he warned.

Dean shrugged noncommittally, concentrating on fully coating his brother’s back. It took a almost half the bottle to finish—Sam was a ginormous bastard—and when he was done he shoved the aloe back at his brother and said, “Finish up, Gigantor. I’m going to get some more from Aaron.”

Sam took the bottle with a sigh. “This is gonna feel like crap when I put my shirt back on,” he said mournfully.

Dean rolled his shoulders. Damn burn was starting to itch. “Yeah, well, you can’t go hunting in your tightie whities. It’d be like putting a sign on your chest saying ‘free lunch here’.”

“Bite me,” Sam snapped, dabbing at his chest.

“S’what I’m saying.” Dean ducked out of the cabin before his brother could respond and then stood on the porch for a moment, looking out across the dusty, sun-flooded yard. He debated going back in to grab a shirt—he was burnt enough already—and then decided against it. He didn’t really want anything against his skin just now, and it was only about sixty feet over to the main lodge. He sprinted across, thanking God and every other entity he could think of that no one else was staying there right now. He knew he looked like an idiot. A red-skinned, soon-to-be-peeling idiot.

The shadows inside the main lodge were blessedly cool on his skin and he paused just inside the door, eyes shut, basking in the absence of light. He allowed himself a moment to relax, letting all his defenses down, and felt open and free for the first time in months. There were no women on the ranch, which was fantastic—the irony of _him_ thinking _that_ wasn’t lost on him—but he wasn’t sure about one of the ranch hands that was still around, which meant that he still had to watch himself. Not as much, but even that little bit was a strain after a while. Here, though, it was dark and private. He was alone. He could let go, just for a few minutes. Now, if only that damned itching across his shoulder blades would go away, everything would be perfect.

“Well, hell, I didn’t know today was my birthday.”

Dean jumped at the brush of a hand against his chest, accidentally slamming his back against the wooden wall—ow, _fuck_ that hurt!—and swearing under his breath. _Stupid fucking hell shit incubus venom. Next time I see one of those fuckers, I’m gonna take my time sending it back to hell._ He yanked his control back, feeling it settle over him like iron shackles, and opened his eyes to look at the woman—no, girl—standing in front of him. Her expression was vague, eyes distant, and Dean allowed himself another moment to collect his defenses before stepping forward again.

“Hey,” he said. “You okay?”

She blinked at him, then shook her head. A honey blonde ponytail flickered into view over her shoulder. “Huh? Oh, I’m sorry, I must’ve been daydreaming a bit.” She smiled at him, and the expression turned her face, which bore an unfortunate resemblance to the ranch’s equine occupants, into something striking. Dean let his polite smile widen a bit. If there were going to be women around, then he might as well enjoy himself.

“S’okay. I’m Dean.” He stuck out his hand.

She shook it heartily. “I figured you were,” she said. “Well, Dean or Sam. Dad told me to be on the lookout for a couple of fellas masquerading as boiled tomatoes.”

He winced. “That bad, huh?”

“Be worse when it starts peeling. I’m Reggie, Aaron’s daughter. Had a weekend off from school, so I figured I’d stop back and say hey.”

“Oh right,” Dean said, remembering. “You’re at college, right? San Antonio U? Your dad said you were pre-law. You should talk to my brother; you’d get along great.”

“I’ll do that. Look, not to be rude, but is there something I can get for you? I’m supposed to be helping Dad with dinner.”

“Yeah, actually. Aaron already gave us a bottle of aloe, but Sam’s freakishly huge, and—”

“You were wondering if we had any more. Sure do. You’d be surprised how many guests we get who forget to bring sunscreen.” Her eyes danced across his chest and then she grinned impishly, turning away to head further into the lodge. “Or maybe you wouldn’t.”

“We used sunscreen,” Dean protested, following her.

“I’ll bet you did. At nine in the morning, right? It sweats off, you know.”

“Sure I do. I just forgot to reapply. We were busy.” Finding out that the one black dog you were hunting was actually the five black dogs you were hunting did that every time.

“Busy helping dad catch those coyotes?” She headed behind the reception counter and ducked down.

“That’s right.” Or, well, that was what Aaron thought, anyway. Dean leaned over the counter and Reggie almost took his head off when she popped back up.

“Here.” She slid a new bottle across the countertop at him.

“Thanks, darlin'.” Dean tipped her a bright grin as he turned to go and was gratified to see her flush. Depending on how well this aloe stuff worked, maybe he’d see if she wanted to take a walk after dinner. They’d have about four hours before the black dogs showed up, which should be plenty of time. Plus, it would get him out of the room while Sam bitched about how uncomfortable he was with a layer of aloe between his skin and his shirt.

“Nice tat.”

He stopped, turning back to face her. “Hunh?”

Reggie tilted her head in a nod at him. “Your tattoo. I like it. It’s sexy.” Her smile deepened into something heavy with promise, but right then Dean didn’t much care. His own grin felt painfully stiff.

“Oh, thanks. Sorry, it’s new. I forgot I had it.” _Smooth, Winchester._ “Oh, uh, Reggie?”

“Yeah?”

“You think Aaron’s got a shirt I can borrow? I don’t want to go back out in the sun like this.”

“We’ve got a few here. Lost and found. Must have something that’ll fit you.” She disappeared behind the counter again and Dean resisted the urge to twist around and try to get a look at his back, which was itching fit to drive him insane. Mostly because he thought that he knew what was going on. He’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop for months, and now here it was. He just hoped it wouldn’t kill him.

Dean took the shirt Reggie offered and hurried out as politely as he could, pulling the blue and white plaid button up on as he went. It stung like a son of a bitch against his sunburn, but he ignored the pain the same way he was trying to ignore the mind-numbing itch across his shoulders. Outside, he took a few minutes to compose himself before crossing the yard and returning to the cabin he and Sam were sharing.

Sam had finished his chest by the time Dean walked in and was just starting on his face, looking disgusted at having to paint himself with aloe but more relaxed on the whole as it took effect. Dean strolled past him with a mutter about needing to take a piss and shut the bathroom door firmly between them before Sam could respond. He paused, looking down at the handle, and then pushed in the button lock. Give him a little warning if Sam decided to barge in. Then he ripped off the borrowed shirt and spun, putting his back towards the mirror that hung over the sink.

Wings. There were huge, fucking wings tattooed across his shoulder blades.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dean knew that he was being a bastard at dinner, but he couldn’t really bring himself to care. If Sam got suspicious, he could always pass it off as a side effect of being sunburned to within an inch of his life, but really, he was too distracted to feel the heat that Reggie claimed was radiating off of his skin. He could, however, feel his shoulder blades in excruciating detail. The itching had given way to a stinging pain that edged along the lines of the tattoo, as though some needleman was constantly retouching it. Dean didn’t know which was worse: the annoying pain or the fact that he couldn’t tell Sam about it.

Oh, Dean had thought about telling him all right. He’d sat in the bathroom thinking about that very thing until Sam yelled through the door that if he didn’t stop jerking off soon they’d be late for dinner. Ass. But in the end, Dean had realized that having a conversation about it would be pretty much useless. Mostly because he figured it would go something like this:

 _Hey, man, you remember that time I got bit by a coupla incubi and you had to drag my sorry ass to some witch Bobby dug up for us? Remember how she wasn’t really human and she put her fucking claws in me somehow? You remember that note she left us? The one where she said you gave me to her? No? Oh, well, just kidding then._

Dean thought he might have at least tried to tell Sam if it hadn’t been for the fact that all the clues he’d dropped in the months since they’d left Rachel’s—and if that was her real name then Dean was a Franciscan monk—house had produced absolutely no response from his brother. He’d practically waved the angelica and asphodel tablets in front of Sam’s face, had used every opportunity he could to talk about incubi—which had resulted in some pretty insulting questions from Sam about Dean’s sexual orientation—and made up ribald stories about hookers named Max. Nada, zip, and pretty much zilch.

Dean didn’t want to find out what would happen if he sat Sam down and related the story for him. He didn’t know if it would be worse if Sam forgot what he was talking about five minutes after he finished saying it or if Sam remembered. Because he’d blame himself for what happened, Dean knew he would, and that was bullshit. Sam had a lot of things to answer for, but being manipulated by a powerful God-knows-what into putting Dean through some kind of messed up ritual? Not one of them.

So he bit back on the panic rushing around in his stomach and smiled too widely at Aaron and Reggie and ignored his brother and tried to decide what the fuck to do. Call Bobby, maybe. But he’d done that months ago to ask about Rachel, and it seemed that Bobby knew next to nothing about the woman. _‘Good reputation, for a sideliner. She gets the job done, even if she does deal with both sides. Dropped off the grid recently, though. Bargained when she should have run, is what I think.’_ No help there.

Missouri? Dean so did not want to tangle with her again. She hadn’t said anything—not to him—but that woman saw too much, too deep. Dean wasn’t letting her get within ten miles of him again, if he could help it.

“Dean!” Sam's voice. And it sounded like he’d been trying to get Dean’s attention for a while now. Shit.

“What?”

“Pass the greens, would you, man?” Sam squinted at him suspiciously as Dean handed the bowl across the table but didn’t say anything, which either meant he was going to let it go— _yeah, right_ —or he was waiting to corner him until there were fewer outsiders around. Damn it, Dean couldn’t deal with this right now. He had to figure out why the hell that bitch had run him through a ritual whose only purpose seemed to be to put a girly tattoo on his back.

 **Come.**

He straightened, ignoring the sudden rush of pain as all his muscles tensed. He glanced quickly around the table, but everyone was still talking easily, like they hadn’t just heard some disembodied voice shouting in their ear. Because, of course, they hadn’t.

 **Come.**

Dean’s stomach dropped. He was so screwed.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 **Come.**

Dean turned over in his bed, wanting to punch the mattress or the headboard or something but forcing himself to move quietly so he wouldn't wake Sam. He’d pleaded off of dessert, claiming to feel a little sick to his stomach, and pretended to be sleeping when Sam came back. Dean had sensed his brother standing over him, watching him, but he’d played dead and Sam had gotten bored and gone away. Then it had been time to hunt and they’d both been busy with the black dogs—six, not five, and wasn’t that extra one a bitch to put down—and they’d both been too tired to talk when they finally got back to the cabin. So Dean had managed to put the Talk off for the night: maybe for good if he could distract Sam long enough.

 **Come.**

Except that now that damned voice was driving him nuts. Hours had passed and it was all he could hear, beating against his skin with every pulse of his heart. He opened his mouth to breathe and swallowed the fucking word. If he closed his eyes and tried to shut it out, it brushed against him in a caress, insistent and needy and just pushing, constantly pushing.

 **Come.**

Dean's fingers grasped chill metal and he started, backing up. He didn’t remember getting out of bed. Didn’t remember crossing to the door. _Oh, shit._

He must have said it out loud because Sam sat up in his bed and said, “Dean?”

Dean cleared his throat. “S’okay, Sam. Thought I heard something, but it was just a coyote.”

Sam grunted and dropped back down, rolled over. Started snoring a few seconds later.

 **Come.**

Dean padded into the bathroom and shut the door, then leaned against it. The lines of the tattoo still felt as though they were slicing into his skin and he winced, rotating his shoulders as though he could shrug the thing off. He was screwed, he was so screwed, because it was starting to look like he was going even if he didn’t want to.

 **Come.**

 **Come.**

 **Come.**

 **Come.**

He pushed himself off the door and stumbled to the shower stall, where he dropped to his knees and twisted the knob. Cold water shuddered down on his back and his body spasmed painfully. Dean was overheated from the sunburn, and the water was so cold on his skin that he thought for a few minutes that he was going to go into shock.

 **Come.**

“Screw you, bitch,” he muttered, voice low and mindful of Sam asleep in the next room. “You don’t get me. You don’t.”

 **Come.**

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“I’ll just be gone for a few days.”

Sam was frowning as though he didn’t believe it and Dean sighed, tossing his bag into the backseat of the Impala and shutting the door.

“Seriously, dude," he grumbled. "What are we, joined at the hip?”

Sam shook his head. “It’s not that and you know it, Dean. What if this isn’t a poltergeist? What if it’s something bigger?”

 **Come.**

 _Shut up, bitch._

“Look, Bobby said it was a poltergeist. You doubt the man?”

Sam shifted his weight a little. “No, but—”

“And someone’s gotta stay here for a few days, make sure we got the whole pack, right?”

“Right, but, Dean—”

“Well, looks like we sorted that one out, Sammy.” Dean headed around the Impala to the driver’s side and opened the door.

Sam trotted after him persistently. “Can’t this poltergeist thing wait?”

“If it could, you think I’d be going?” Dean slid inside, went to shut the door and found Sam holding it open. “Let go of the door, Sam.”

“Dean, I’ve got a bad feeling about this…”

“That your shining acting up?” Because if it was, he wasn’t going. Bitch could whisper to him all she wanted.

 **Come.**

 _Damn it._

Sam shook his head slowly. “No, I don’t think so. Just a hunch.”

“Yeah?" Dean snorted. "Well, I think I’ll go with Bobby over whatever bee flew in your bonnet this morning.”

“Please, man, just wait a few days, then we can go take care of it together.”

And Dean was going to allow that right about never. Because he’d found another reason not to tell Sam what was going on since they’d gotten up that morning—Dean couldn’t really call it _waking_ up because that would imply that he’d gone to sleep. He wasn’t going to tell Sam about this stupid tattoo and voice thing because he wasn’t letting that unnatural bitch anywhere near his brother.

 **Come.**

“This isn’t a discussion, Sam. Just do your damn job. I’ll be back in a few days.” He yanked on the door, hard, knowing that Sam would move his hand before it got crushed. Sam did, dancing back a few steps and glaring. Dean waved his hand in a jaunty farewell and pulled out, motor purring. He wasn’t sure where he was going, exactly, but he figured that the voice or whatever would tell him.

 **Come.**

“Shut the hell up; I’m coming already!”

But a moment later there it was again, calling him, pulling him.

 **Come.**

“Goddamn it!”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“You have _got_ to be shitting me.”

The Impala was idling at the side of the road where Dean had pulled her when he saw the sign. He didn’t know how many hours he’d been driving—a lot, though, from the way his hands and the small of his back ached. The time had gone past in a blur of the needling across his shoulder blade and the continual, mind-numbing whisper pounding into him.

 **Come.**

He’d come, following some kind of homing signal that he didn’t understand and couldn’t consciously perceive, but he sure as hell wasn’t going any farther.

“Son of a bitch,” he said now, slamming one fist down onto the steering wheel angrily.

 **Come.**

“Pick another place, bitch. Anywhere else. Pick Detroit.”

 **Come.**

Dean pressed his eyes shut and drew a shuddering breath, then forced himself to put the car in gear and pulled back onto the road.

He didn’t feel any different when he passed the sign, but that might have been because he was already too overloaded on fear and anger for anything else to register.

 _Welcome to Lawrence._


	2. Chapter 2

She was waiting for him in a little house on Vermont Street, across from the park where his mother had sometimes taken him to play Before. Dean knew it was the right house just by looking at it, even though it looked no different from any other house on the street. He pulled the Impala into the garage and walked up to the back door. Peering through the little window, he could see that it opened onto a kitchen.

When he tried it, the door was unlocked. He stood on the little back step, looking in, and thought that this was it: if he went inside then she would have won. But he was just fooling himself, wasn’t he? Because she had won the moment Sam had carried him into her house. Everything else after that had just been … details.

 **Come.**

Dean stepped across the threshold and the whispering cut off abruptly. His skin crawled with the sudden, unnatural silence. He couldn’t hear anything now that he was inside, even though there had been some kind of peewee soccer game going on in the park right across the street, little kids yelling with those loud, exuberant voices they had until the world drilled it into them that they needed to sit down and shut up. He should have heard them. He should have heard the ill-tempered dog barking next door. It was like he’d suddenly gone deaf.

He tried backing out and as soon as he was on the top step the sound came flooding back in, making him grab the doorframe for support. The whispering was back too, only now it wasn’t a whisper: it was a shout, drilling into his head.

 **Come come come come come come co**

He dove forward again and it cut off. He stood in the kitchen by the door for a few minutes, hesitating as though he could do anything else but move forward, into the living room where he sensed that she was waiting, and then shut the door behind him. The silence inside was horrible, pressing up against him uncomfortably, and he was suddenly aware that he was badly sunburned—could feel the heat beating off his skin.

He moved forward and stood in the kitchen doorway, looking into the living room, and there she was.

Rachel was sitting in an oversized armchair facing him. Just sitting there waiting for him. No, not _just_ sitting. She was smiling, too: proud, like a mother whose child just made honor roll. She gave the impression of having been there for a long time, and he imagined her sitting there, smiling to herself, while he was down in Texas with Sam, and couldn’t resist a shudder.

“Dean,” she said, beckoning him closer with one hand.

He crossed his arms and leaned in the doorway, jaw clenched. He didn’t know if he’d ever been this terrified in his life—not for himself, anyway: Sam had scared the shit out of him plenty of times—but damned if he was going to let her know. So he smiled tightly and said, “I think I’ll stay here. I’m not staying, anyway. Just dropped in for a beer.”

“I’m sure you’ll be much more comfortable in here.” She beckoned again, a slight cocking of her wrist, and this time the motion went right through him, yanking him forward the few steps it took to stand before her. She lowered her hand and pain laced through his legs, loosening his muscles and dropping him to his knees.

“Very nice,” she murmured, running one hand through his hair as though she were petting a dog. “Better than I remembered.”

“That’s flattering, really, but you’re not my type.”

Her smile only deepened, twisting into a mocking cast, and she leaned close to him. He could smell her skin: dry and dusty. Something old.

“You belong to me, Dean Winchester.”

“Like hell I do.”

Rachel chuckled, sliding the hand on his head down to cup the side of his face. “This is mine,” she breathed. Her hand lowered to trace across his shoulder blades, sending waves of fire through the tattoo that made him grunt in pain. “This is mine.” Both of her hands on him now, stroking and claiming, moving along his arms. “These are mine.”

Her left hand petted his arm in a gesture of ownership, her right slid down his chest, around his side to the small of his back. There was a small click when the gun he had hidden there caught on his belt buckle as she pulled it out. Her breath was warm on his face. “This is mine.”

 _No._

But Dean stayed kneeling while Rachel stood and circled around behind him, setting the gun down in the chair. Where he could stare at it and know that he couldn’t reach for it, couldn’t grab it and spin and shoot the bitch between the eyes like he’d been planning. He stayed still as she shrugged him out of his leather jacket, out the shirt he was wearing underneath it. Jerked forward slightly when he felt the brush of her hand on his bare skin, tracing the outline of the wings tattooed there, but it was involuntary: a gesture born of pain, like razors slicing deep.

“Perfect,” she murmured, pressing a little harder. A sudden surge of bile choked him and a wave of darkness blacked his vision, but he didn’t move this time: didn’t cry out. He wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction. She dug in deeper, nails pushing into his skin, and he felt a trickle of blood run down his back. Dean moaned: a lost, hurt sound. Couldn’t help himself.

“Does that hurt?” Rachel asked.

“Actually,” he panted. “You want to scratch a little harder? I’ve got this itch.”

“It’ll stop soon,” she said, hands soft now, stroking gently. It still hurt, her touch like acid burning into him, but he seemed to be getting used to it. As though she had heard his thoughts, she added, “Your body just needs a little time to adjust.”

“Adjust to what?”

Her voice in his ear, lips brushing against it. “Have you ever wanted to fly, Dean?”

“I hate flying.” It was the truth, but there was no reason to hide that from her.

Rachel laughed as though he’d said something terribly witty and then she was gone from behind him, circling back to the chair. She lifted the gun and cradled it in her lap as she sat. Then she just looked at him, studying his face.

Dean stared back at her, even though everything inside him was screaming at him to look away, to just get out, because if he looked much longer he’d remember what it was he’d seen when that thing had been inside him. God, he didn’t want to know. So, conversation: always a good distraction.

“What do you want?” He hated the way that came out, like a plea.

“This time?” Rachel shrugged. “Not much. Take out some insurance on my investment, take it for a test drive.” Her hands moved across the gun in a caress and then she leaned forward in a sudden, too-fast-to-be-human movement.

“I know what you’re wondering, Dean: why me?”

He managed a grin—that shit-eating, cocky grin that always exasperated Sam. “Oh, I know why you picked me. Pedro quit on you and you need another cabana boy. Well, I’ll tell you right now, I won’t work weekends and I’m not wearing one of those little string—”

“I have your brother to thank, really,” she interrupted. “I don’t know that I would have figured it out if he hadn’t told me. Don’t get me wrong, Dean, I knew there was something there when I first laid eyes on you, but when you’re as old as I am, and you’ve been searching for as long as I have, it can be difficult to recognize the Holy Grail when it shows up on your doorstep.” She tilted her head. “How is Sam, by the way? It’s too bad you didn’t bring him. I would have liked to have seen him again: he’s valuable as well, in his own way.”

“Leave him out of this, or so help me God—”

“God? What are you and God gonna do?”

Dean felt his heart stutter to a stop. Those words. Hell, even the voice. He searched her eyes for a sly yellow gleam. She leaned forward and patted his cheek, eyes not yellow at all, but a soft blue: eyes to drown in.

“Is _that_ supposed to be my line?” she asked gently. “I don’t think so, Dean. I’m not your enemy here. I won’t hurt you—not more than I need to.”

“That’s real reassuring.” He swallowed thickly, realizing that the pain in his back had mostly faded and wondering what that meant. Nothing good, he supposed.

“I won’t do anything you don’t make me do, Dean.”

“Bet that’s what all the rapists say to their victims.”

“Is that why you think you’re here?”

Not really, no. Dean didn’t think that at all. He knew better. They both did. Rape would have been a blessing compared to whatever she wanted from him.

“I thought not. You’re an intelligent man, Dean Winchester. Much more intelligent than your brother gives you credit for.”

Sam again. Dean couldn’t let her think about him. Sam was safe for now, but Dean needed to keep Rachel's attention off of his brother. “Why bring him into it?” he asked. “Could make a guy jealous here. I thought I’m the one you wanted.”

She didn’t take the bait, of course, because that would’ve been too easy.

“Does it bother you to talk about him? Or do you just not want to know what he really thinks of you? What’s underneath all the lies and posturing.”

“You can stop right there, Rachel, or whatever your name is. Cause if you don’t think that every evil bastard and their uncle out there hasn’t tried to screw with us this way, you’re a fucking moron.”

“He loves you.”

Okay, that wasn’t where he thought she was going with this.

“He practically worships the ground you walk on. Oh, you annoy him sometimes, and I’m certain that you’ve made him more than a little angry at least once or twice, but you’re still the big brother. The hero. He looks up to you, you know: admires you. He worries about you.”

“You going somewhere with this, Dr. Phil?”

“I suppose I just find it ironic that he gave away his brother because he loves him so completely. Filial devotion is a strange, wonderful thing.”

Okay, that was it. Sam blamed himself enough for shit without this bitch adding to his plate, even if Sam wasn’t there to hear it. “Sam didn’t do anything.”

“Oh, really? He’s the one who told me what you are—he’s the one who gave up his claim on you. Do you really think I could have touched you if he hadn’t given you up first?”

“That ritual in the basement…” Confusion muzzled him as he remembered it again. It had hurt. God, had it hurt. Like something tearing out of him, then like hooks digging into that wounded, empty spot.

“A trade. You’ve been wearing his yoke your whole life, now you’re wearing mine. He gave you to me, Dean Winchester.”

Dean shook his head and fixed his lips in a fierce smile. “Sam couldn’t give me to you because I’m not his to give.”

“Weren’t you? Oh, Dean. A martyr never belongs to himself.”

Martyr. That’s what Pastor Jim had called all those saps who died for no good reason. “Lady, I hate to burst your bubble, but I don’t believe in God.”

“You think holy men are the only martyrs in the world? No, Dean. Not in the true sense of the word. There are some men who are born different—they’re born on the edge of a knife, balancing all their lives until, finally, they fall to one side or another where they inevitably perish. True martyrs are unique individuals—and rare. Do you know how rare? No, of course you don’t, but I’ll tell you this: I’ve spent three centuries looking for one and you are the first I’ve found.”

“Tough luck, cause you’re not keeping this one.” Not that he was a martyr because, for one, he didn’t plan on dying anytime soon, and as for two: see number one.

“Yes, I am. Hush, Dean.” She pressed one finger to his lips and he felt his throat lock around the words he had been about to say. “I’m going to tell you what makes you so important to me because I want us to understand one another. You’re an uncolored knight on the chessboard—neither black nor white. Martyrs are constantly so close to the edge of oblivion that they attract attention—sometimes from one side, sometimes from another. And either side can use that piece, as long as they can control it. Martyrs, you see, are made to be neutral pieces in the game until the hour of their death is at hand. They’re the great loophole of our existence.”

“I’m bound to neutrality, Dean. I can’t fight, can only watch, and act as battle triage for the wounded. But you? You can do anything, for either side, and not compromise my oath. Because, technically, you are also a true neutral. Beautiful, isn’t it.”

“After so long I can finally get back into the game. And the generals of this war will pay much more for a soldier than for a nurse.”

Dean found his throat loosened again and said, harshly, “I’m not fighting for you. Get yourself another soldier.”

“Dean, oh Dean.” She cupped his face, almost kindly, and smiled down at him. “You don’t have a choice.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

He was chained to a chair in the basement—not as cushy a set-up as the last one she’d had, but then again she hadn’t been here as long, and she’d been laying low. He was sweating, exhausted, and stripped down to his boxers and his jewelry. Normally that would have signified a hell of a lot of enjoyable sex in the recent past, but this time it just meant that Rachel had been putting him through his paces. So to speak. And she had drawn some kind of funky symbols all over him with the same blue mush she’d used last time.

“Last one,” she announced cheerfully, drawing back and dropping the bowl carelessly on the ground. Her right hand was stained blue. “Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“Oh, I’m having loads of fun.”

“Mmm.” He heard water running behind him—Rachel washing her hands—and then some clinking as she rummaged around on her workbench. “Let me see…ah, here it is.” She walked back in front of him, a small silver cross at the end of a chain in one hand. She reached for his amulet and he jerked back as best he could.

“That doesn’t come off.”

She sighed as though he were a small child being peevish. “This ritual only allows for one amulet, Dean.”

“Well, hey, then here’s an idea: let’s just scrap the whole thing, okay? You can just unchain me and I’ll leave and we’ll both pretend this never happened.”

“Very funny.” She reached again and he wrenched away, upending the entire chair.

“Ow,” he complained, face pressed into the cold concrete of the floor. She lifted the chair with one hand, and he’d known she wasn’t human, but seeing her do shit like that really brought it home. She didn’t look angry as she checked the symbols she’d painted on him for smudging: she didn’t have much of an expression at all, actually, which was par for the course this evening. If she wasn’t smiling and petting him like some expensive poodle, she was expressionless and businesslike. Dean wasn’t sure which was worse.

“That means something to you?” she asked finally, when she had assured herself that her precious symbols were okay.

“It goes with my eyes.”

“Answer me truthfully and you can keep it.”

Dean grimaced and cut his eyes away from her. This was … Damn it, this was stupid. But she was going to take it, he could see, and he had the feeling that he wouldn’t be getting it back. Still, she was reaching for him again by the time he could bring himself to blurt out, “My dad gave it to me, okay? It was a present. For my birthday.”

“You care for him? Miss him?”

Dean stared at her steadily, eyes blank and mouth shut. It usually worked with Sam, but then again, Sam wasn’t some kind of ancient being that made him need to look away after a minute or so. Staring too long led to seeing—actually _seeing_ her—and he wasn’t going there. Especially not while he was mostly naked and chained to a chair.

“Answer the question, Dean.”

“Yeah, all right? I miss him.”

“It’s fascinating the amount of emotion you humans are capable of,” Rachel noted. He heard something hit the floor and looked back at her to see that she’d dropped the cross. “All right. I’ll use the variation. You can keep your amulet.”

“You’re a real peach.” She had gone behind him again, so he wasn’t prepared when she grabbed his head in a vise-like grip and tilted it to the side. “Hey!” he yelled. “What the hell are you doing?” Oh. Needle. Long needle near his eye. Dean stopped struggling. He wasn’t going to poke his own eye out by mistake.

“Preparing for the variation,” Rachel answered, moving the needle closer. Then it dropped out of his line of sight and there was a sting in his ear, faint at first and then worse as she drew the needle through.

Then the needle was gone and something else was replacing it. There was pressure and then she released his head and stepped away. He shook his head, feeling blood drip down onto his neck and something swing softly against his earlobe. The bitch had pierced his ear.

Dean almost fell asleep during the ritual itself: it was kind of a let down to listen to Rachel speaking gibberish after all that prep-work. And it didn’t hurt, which was a pleasant surprise. Well, not until she finished, anyway, when the earring she’d stuck in his ear suddenly went nuclear on him.

“Ow, fuck! What the hell is that?”

“The cross would have hurt less,” she said.

“What the hell?” he asked again, shaking his head as though he could toss the earring out. God, that hurt. It was burning his ear. When he finally got the damned thing out he’d have a third degree burn there, if there was any skin left at all.

“The earring is holding the spell, centering it until it sets. It won’t cause you any physical harm.”

“Yeah, well it hurts!” he protested.

“It’s only for a few weeks—”

“A few weeks!”

“—and then you can take it out. But it isn’t coming out until then. Neither you nor anyone else is allowed to remove it.” Blue eyes bored into his and he knew that he could try all he wanted later—if there was one, which it was starting (unfortunately) to look like there would be—and he wouldn’t be able to get his hand near the damn thing.

“You’re doing well so far.”

“Fuck off, bitch,” he grunted.

“Manners, Dean.” She sat on the floor and crossed her legs in front of her, placing her hands on her knees. “Now that I have you insured, there’s the little matter of a test run. Then you can go back to Sam.”

“What do you want?” He had no intentions of doing whatever it was, of course, just as she had no intentions of letting him go. Back to Sam? Yeah, right. Maybe when Hell froze over.

“I want you to kill something for me.” She produced his gun and laid it in his lap.

Something. She’d said some _thing_. Maybe he could just … No. It was the principal of the thing. But she was still talking.

“… been killing teenagers a few towns over. Messy deaths, Dean. Painful. It should be easy for you to take out one ghoul by yourself, especially now.”

“No.”

“What?”

“I said no. Getting a little hard of hearing in your old age? You can do whatever you want to me, apparently, but I’m not doing anything for you, you hear me?”

“You’d rather let this ghoul keep killing and feeding, knowing you could have done something about it?”

His stomach twisted. No, he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t let that son of a bitch eat its way through the tri-county area. But … this wasn’t everything she wanted from him. If all that Rachel had wanted was a hunter to kill all the evil shit for her, she could have called any number of people. She didn’t need to do … all this. Not for that.

So …

“Yeah, I would.” More deaths on his head now: no telling how many until some other hunter caught wind of this and put a stop to it. But he was used to carrying that kind of responsibility, and a few more lives weren’t going to tip the scales.

Rachel stood, expressionless. She looked down at him. Slowly smiled. For a moment he could see through this motherly form she was wearing to whatever was underneath. Smooth, black skin. Something golden, shining. Wings, high, unfurled. Her eyes were not human eyes—had never been human eyes. Silver bathed in liquid light, blinding. Hard, empty eyes. No iris. No whites. No pupil. No soul. Then she was leaning into him and the glimpse—vision—whatever it was, was gone.

“I knew you’d say that.”

Pain. Oh God, he’d never felt pain like this. Not even when the yellow-eyed bastard of a demon had been ripping him up from the inside out. It was sensory overload, eating him up. Too much to take in at once, it came to him in snapshot images. Three nails on his right foot ripped off. Needles, burning, inserted into both eyes. Hand almost severed from his body, left hanging by a thread of skin. Something inside him—rat, maybe—chewing through stomach and intestines, burrowing deeper. Branding iron not just burning his skin but melting it, ripping a lump of flesh free as it’s lifted. Teeth yanked out of his mouth one by one.

It stopped as suddenly as it had started. He was still sitting in the chair, chains securing him in place. Sweat was running off of him in tiny rivers, drenching him. There were deep bruises and shallow, bloodied cuts around his wrists and ankles where he’d pulled against the chains. His throat was dry and sore, as though he’d been screaming. Maybe he had. _Not real not real. It wasn’t real._ Oh Christ how long had that been? Months? Years? Did it matter?

Rachel was tipping water down his throat. He swallowed gratefully, not really caring at the moment whether she’d laced it with anything. He closed his eyes and let his head slump back, the burning in his ear not as painful in comparison to whatever had just happened.

“Are you ready to go hunting yet?”

“No,” he croaked.

She didn’t use the … whatever … again. This time it was for keeps: his blood dripping onto the floor, his skin parting underneath the knife. But she was subtler than the vision had been: just as much pain with less damage afterwards. Handy if you wanted the subject to go do some intense physical labor when you were done with them. Dad had told him about things like this. Things from ‘Nam. Things he’d heard from fellow hunters: demons could get real creative, and they didn’t always kill you once they’d had their fun. So she didn’t really show him anything he didn’t already know. But then again she did.

She talked while she worked. Told him how special he was, about the things they were going to do together. How he shouldn’t worry—there was no pressure, they’d work up to humans. She didn’t expect him to jump right into the deep end, gosh no.

Dean thought he might have cried. He thought he might have thrown up a few times. He thought, maybe, that he called for Sam. For Dad. For Mom. He knew he screamed. God, how he screamed.

It took him a while to register that she had stopped. She gave him water again. Wiped off his body with a wet cloth that was white when she started and red when she finished. Drew a hand down his chest, murmuring, “Perfect.”

Which was when he realized that there wasn’t a mark on him. Not anymore, anyway.

“What the fuck,” he rasped.

She lay her hand on his forehead and smiled up at him. “Insurance policy. I can’t have you dying on me just when I’ve found you, can I?”

“I’m invincible?” It hurt to talk. Probably because of the rag she’d shoved down there a few times. Hell, breathing was still a novel experience.

“Not quite. You’re harder to hurt, and you heal faster, that’s all. I was careful with you.”

Dean laughed bitterly. “Yeah, real careful.”

“Are you ready to go hunting, yet?”

 _Yes, oh, fuck yes._ “Go to hell, bitch.”

“You know I can do this all night, Dean. All day. For weeks. You won’t die. You’ll heal and keep healing.”

He was so not going to cry. Not now that his insides were on the inside where they belonged and Rachel wasn’t peeling pieces of skin off his stomach. “I’ve got nowhere else to be. Let’s party.”

“Everyone breaks, Dean.”

“You break it, you bought it.” He was starting to feel pretty good again. Physically, anyway.

“Oh, sweetie.” She laughed. “I don’t want to break you, I just want you to bend that stiff neck of yours.” She pressed their foreheads together and Dean found himself staring right into those blue eyes of hers. They were wide and sincere, brimming with kindness. Yeah, right. And he was the Pope. “I could hurt you until there’s nothing left of you inside but pain—until there’s no mind left, no heart. I suppose that with your incubus abilities and that perfect body of yours I could sell you to a brothel, but … That would be such a waste of your natural talents. And I don’t think you’d yield before you broke, not this way.”

“Then why the hell have you been poking and prodding me all day?”

“I was just making sure that the ritual took. I couldn’t let you go without checking, could I? No, I have something else to convince you that you want to do what I’m asking. And it’s such a small thing, isn’t it, Dean? Something you would have done anyway, if you’d found out about it yourself.”

“Sweet talk all you like, lady, but it’s getting you no where.”

She smiled, leaning back to kneel between his legs. “I own you, Dean.”

“So you keep saying.”

“But I don’t have to keep you.”

“Okaaaay, I’m not getting how that’s a bad thing.”

“There are so many … concerned parties ... out there who would love to get their hands on someone like you. Some of them aren’t very nice, Dean. Some of them won’t care whether you do something of your own free will or whether they _make_ you do it. There are ways to do that, you know, and possession is only one of them. The least of them.”

“They’d take you away from Sam. I’m letting you stay with your brother, unless you’re needed.”

Dean was shivering—couldn’t seem to make himself stop.

“So you see, Dean, I want you. I want you badly, but what good is a dog if it won’t play fetch? Good for parts, maybe. Good for the pet food plant. Do you want to know about some of my associates who might buy you? Do you want to hear what they’ll make you do? Worse than murder. Worse than torture. To children, perhaps? An incubus’ abilities don’t come with an age limit, you know.”

“Stop!” he tried to yell, but it only came out as a weak whisper.

But she heard. She had been waiting to hear it. “What is it, Dean? Do you have something to say?”

“Unchain me.”

“Why should I do that?”

“So I can go hunting.”

“That’s my boy.”


	3. Chapter 3

When he pulled the Impala back into Aaron’s ranch three days later, Dean practically felt like his old self again. After all, it had only been a ghoul. And he was in perfect health, if you didn’t count the constant burn from the earring, which didn’t show up on his skin: more of that mind over matter crap. So what if he had a new tattoo on his back? So what if he’d been blackmailed into hunting? It was what he did, wasn’t it?

He didn’t let himself think about the rest of it: the things she’d done to him and the things she’d made him _think_ she’d done to him. He didn’t think about it because he was focused on figuring out how to get out of the mess he was in before Rachel graduated him to other ‘jobs’. Making lists of contacts in his head, shuffling them around, crossing a few off, adding others. He needed to get to a good occult library: see if he could find out what the hell those symbols she’d painted on him were. There was a hoodoo practitioner down in New Orleans he could drop in on, get himself checked out. Maybe she’d find something the other psychics he’d tried before had missed.

Sam came bounding up to the car, relief and anger struggling for position on his face. Anger won out, of course, because Dean was having that kind of a life.

“Where the hell have you been? I called you like twenty times, man! I thought you were hurt, or dead, or God knows what!”

Yeah, Dean knew because he’d had to delete all the messages Sam had left. He’d considered calling Sam back, or picking up the next time he called, but he just hadn’t felt like it. Didn’t feel like dealing with him now, either, but he didn’t really have a choice anymore.

“Charger’s busted and my phone ran out of juice. We’ll have to pick another one up at the next Wal-Mart.”

“You should have used a payphone. Damn it, Dean, you can’t just disappear on me like that! Not after Dad…” He choked, then stopped, just looking at Dean with those wide, hurt eyes, and suddenly Dean felt like the world’s greatest dick. He’d spent the week being tortured while Sam had been sitting on his ass at some cheesy Dude Ranch and somehow he still ended up being the villain in the piece.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay, Sammy? I got wrapped up in things and I lost track of time.”

“You lost track of ... What the hell kind of excuse _is that an earring_?”

It took Dean a second to track his brother’s subject jump, but when he had, he put a self-conscious hand up to his ear. “Oh. Uh, yeah. I’m trying it for a while. Just a phase. Probably won’t last more than another week or so. And, uh, I got a tattoo.” Might as well dump everything at once.

“You _what_?”

“On my back. Coupla wings. Uh. I’m keeping that one for a while.” _At least until I can figure out how to get out of whatever it is I’m in with that freaky bitch._

Sam just looked at him for a minute, completely nonplussed. Then he opened his mouth and said, “Christo.”

Dean snorted at him in disdain. “Dude, I’m not possessed.”

“Coulda fooled me. What is with you? First you take out of here like there’s a fire under your ass, then you don’t answer your phone, and you stop in the middle of a hunt to get pierced and tattooed—which, by the way, _wings_?”

“Oh, uh … Right.” _Come on shit for brains, think._ “It’s, uh, a tribute to Judas Priest. You know, their second album? ‘Sad Wings of Destiny’.” _Oh, nice save._

“Uh huh. So who are you, and what have you done with my brother?”

“Come on, Sam. I’m branching out, trying new things. You should too. Come on, my treat. We can get one of those naked women tattooed on your chest. Or, hey, how about “I’m a big dork”? That’d look great on that huge forehead of yours. Plus, bonus, you won’t have to waste time explaining to everyone why you’re a killjoy geek.”

Sam rolled his eyes as he turned away. “Whatever.”

Round One to Dean Winchester in a KO. Now, how to convince Sam they needed to swing by New Orleans for a few days…

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sam, of course, insisted on getting a look at the tattoo before they turned in that night. And then on poking it. It didn’t hurt anymore, luckily for Sam, but the sensation was too close to Rachel’s prodding and Dean almost decked him out of panic. Looked like no one was going to be touching his back for a while. _That_ was going to put a crimp in his extracurricular activities.

“Dude,” Sam said from behind him. “These things look like angel wings. Maybe we should get you a harp.”

“Bite me.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Denise, his hoodoo contact, couldn’t find anything on him, so Dean spent most of the week they were in New Orleans forgetting his problems at the local bar near the hotel. When beer didn’t do the job, he switched to tequila. Took him about two bottles to go under, which meant that the ritual was affecting his tolerance too. Because it hadn’t already been weird enough, nicking himself while he was shaving and watching the cut close up in the next second.

On their third day in New Orleans, the earring stopped burning. Dean froze, putting one cautious hand up to his ear, poking at it. Nothing. Just a cold lump of metal. He tore it out and chucked it into a nearby trashcan.

“What was that for?” Sam asked.

Dean shrugged. “Earrings are so nineties.”

“Christo.”

“Shut up.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Everything was relatively quiet for two months. Dean was more careful on hunts, which Sam saw as a sign that he had finally grown enough of a brain to not want to get smashed to pieces. Really, though, Dean didn’t want to have to explain to his brother why he could suddenly take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’. Since he couldn’t do anything about the tickin’ part, he was avoiding the lickin’s.

He also spent more time researching, which Sam didn’t notice because Sam thought that he was out at the bar drinking or heading home with some girl. But there didn’t seem to be anything anywhere he looked. He couldn’t find the symbols, couldn’t find any clues as to what Rachel had done to him, couldn’t find out what she might be.

And then, when they were in Maine tangling with a water spirit, it happened again.

 **Come.**

Dean went.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

This time it was a nest of goblins. He hadn’t even known there were any still left alive. They hadn’t been hurting anything except for a few stray dogs and cats, but he killed them anyway. He sliced them up and burned them right down to the babies clinging to their mother’s legs. They didn’t look human, with their wide mouths and triple rows of sharp, tiny teeth. It helped.

Sam thought he was visiting Cassie, and when Dean got back he asked how she was. Dean said she was fine. Same old Cassie. No killer trucks lately.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

He only got one month of reprieve, and this time there were nightmares. Because it had been a nymph. Not dangerous by any stretch of the imagination. Innocent. Pure. She’d looked like his mother at the end, when he drove the iron knife into her heart. It was quick. He took refuge in that.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The next time she gave him a job, he needed some convincing. She told him about some of the “concerned parties” she was thinking of selling him to. Showed him some pictures. The girl had been six, and Dean thought that her hair might have been blond before they got started on her.

So it turned out that a werewolf could survive being skinned. It was the two silver bullets delivered directly to the heart six hours after he started the whole mess that killed it. It was definitely an it, not a he. Not while it was whimpering and scrambling at the earth to get away. Not when it was screaming. And a killer, don’t forget _that_ important detail.

He’d hung around the area for a few days when he was finished, keeping an eye on the local papers until he found what he was looking for. Ken Fenwal, aged 33. Divorced. He’d been reported missing by his ex-wife, Harriet Fenwal, aged 29. They’d been thinking of getting back together. Dean spent that night drinking heavily and playing pool. Came away with an empty wallet and a broken nose that healed up five minutes later.

He met back up with Sam and they spent the afternoon tossing ideas for the next hunt back and forth. After, Dean spent the night in the bathroom, hunched over the toilet, sweating and pounding his fist into the tiles repeatedly until his knuckles bled, healed, and then bled again. When Sam knocked on the door around two in the morning and asked what was wrong, Dean told him that he had a case of food poisoning, nothing serious, go back to sleep, Sammy. Sam did.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Four months of relative peace. Then, as always,

 **Come.**

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Thought you forgot about me,” Dean said by way of greeting. “No such luck, huh?”

“I’m afraid not. Tea?”

He edged into the room, scowling. “No, thanks. Not that our little conversations aren’t buckets of fun, but can we cut to the chase here? I don’t have a lot of time: Sam’s…” He swallowed and then continued, “Sam’s not really buying the visiting old friends lines anymore, so I had to tell him I was checking out some leads. I’ve got a few days at most.”

“That should be plenty of time. Sit down.”

He glanced at the table, set for tea for two, and edged into the seat across from Rachel. She leaned over to pour tea into the cup in front of him and he pushed it away a little. “I said I didn’t want any.”

“It’s not for you, Dean. I’m expecting company.”

“Good for you. Now what do you want?”

“Temper, Dean.” Someone knocked on the front door, sharp like punches. _Shave and a haircut_ , Dean’s mind sang along inanely. “Would you get that?”

“What am I, the butler?” he muttered.

“If I like, you are.”

Well, okay, point that. And really, after some of the other things he’d done— _don’t think about it: it’s done, it’s over_ —answering the door for one of Rachel’s zany play pals wasn’t such a big deal. As he swung up out of the chair, Rachel’s tea guest leaned on the doorbell and stayed there. Dean grimaced and half-jogged across to the front door. God, that was annoying. Trust Rachel to have the most annoying friends in… All thought cut off and he stood in the doorway, heart yammering at him to run, run now.

The man standing on the front porch grinned toothily at him. An old man, probably homeless from the smell and the state of his clothes, but not harmless. Not with eyes like that. Yellow, sickly eyes.

“Dean,” the demon purred. “How nice to see you.”


	4. Chapter 4

It was grinning, waiting for a reply of some sort, but he wasn’t ready, not for this. Not here, not now, not ever. The demon’s eyes swirled with pleasure as it spoke into the silence. “Daddy sends his regards, by the way.”

“You son of a bitch.” And just like that he could think again, could move if he knew what he wanted to do. Weapon. He needed a weapon. No, he had a weapon but it wouldn’t do any good, it wasn’t the Colt. The Colt was gone, gone with Dad. God, Dad. God, _Sammy_. No, Sammy was safe, two state lines away. He had to calm down, he had to think.

“What’s going on out there?” Rachel called from behind him. “You coming in?”

“Just catching up on old times,” the demon called back, yellow eyes fixed on Dean. He smiled, and it was hungry. “How’s that brother of yours? Been meaning to stop by, but somehow things just keep popping up. You know how it is: there’s never enough time to get everything done.”

“Dean.” Rachel. From behind him again. That was a warning. If he didn’t move out of the way now, they were going to have another session downstairs. He’d needed one last time, too. He’d said some choice things when he’d found out what Rachel wanted him to do, and even agreeing, in the end, hadn’t been enough to make it up to her.

Okay, options. Option one, he stood his ground, maybe dropped the son of a bitch on principal. Result: innocent dead homeless guy, demon laughing his ass off, trip downstairs for Dean. Option tw—oh, fuck it, who was he kidding?

The gun was in his hand in a second, he was lifting his arm, and then he was on the floor, biting back cries of pain as invisible somethings shredded his chest and back, cutting in deep enough to hit bone. When it stopped, Dean couldn’t find the energy to do anything but lay there, bleeding on the rug. The demon was looking down at him, enjoyment beaming from its borrowed face, but Dean knew that the attack hadn’t come from it: walls and ceilings were more its style. Rachel, then.

“I’m sorry about Dean. He’s still learning his manners. Dean, get off the floor and come over here.”

It wasn’t a request. His body was struggling to get up without his consent, and managing somehow. He thought that he should have been passing out right about now, but Rachel had done worse before, and, as usual, he was already healing. He could feel the demon’s eyes on him as he stumbled over to the table, heading for the chair until a sharp shake of Rachel’s head detoured him around to her side instead, where he stood dripping blood onto the linoleum.

“Interesting,” the demon rumbled, stepping inside and shutting the door behind it. “You didn’t tell me about this.”

“I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Well, color me surprised, then.”

“You know that … that ...” Words failed Dean. Possibly because, although he was healing, he had already lost a lot of blood and was feeling a little lightheaded. _Hang on, damn it! Focus, Winchester._

“We go way back.” It was the demon who answered, lowering itself into the seat across from Rachel. It hadn’t taken those mottled yellow eyes off of Dean, and he wished like hell that he was armed with something—anything. His gun was still lying by the front door where he’d dropped it, too far to get to it in time, if he hadn’t even been able to use it when it was nestled at the small of his back.

“Weren’t always too friendly,” the demon continued, “but I think we’re about to become real close.”

“I take it that means you’re interested?”

“You knew I would be. What do you want for him?”

For… Wait, what?

“That depends on Dean.” She twisted a little to look up at him and he realized that he’d edged closer to her—for protection? God, that was a laugh.

“What?” The demon sounded laid back, but Dean had heard that tone before. It was the one that came right before someone’s insides got torn to shreds: his, usually.

“You get one chance to answer this question correctly, Dean,” Rachel said, ignoring her yellow-eyed guest. “So pay very close attention.” She pulled a folded photograph from her pocket and held it up to him. He squinted at it, trying to focus. A woman. Mass of red hair. Nice cleav…

 _Need. Hunger. Heat there so close. Sinking inside warmth wet tight. Sweat beaded on a breast. Licking long lines with his tongue. Thrusting. Needing. Climb inside her mouth. Yes God yes like that yes. Inside. Have to be inside more. Closer. Tighter. Harder. Yes._

 _‘Name’s Max. Y’can call me anyt’me.’_

“That’s Max,” he said slowly.

“Good boy. Some of my clients from the old neighborhood are having problems with her. She knows too much about them—what they do, but more importantly what they are. They’re afraid that she’s going to bring down the hunters on them.”

 _No. I can’t._ But he couldn’t seem to open his mouth.

“You don’t want to say anything yet, Dean, believe me. Now, I told you we’d work up to it and I believe that we have. You’ve done very well: I haven’t had any complaints. But the truth is, I can’t have a soldier who’s just willing to snipe at tigers in the grass. He has to be willing to engage the enemy. Do you understand, Dean?”

“You want me to kill her.” Normal words, every one of them, but strung together like that, they didn’t seem to make much sense. He’d killed before—twice—but that had been different. It had been in the heat of the moment, for his family. For Sammy and Dad. This? This was for some sadistic bitch that wasn’t even human.

“Yes. It can be quick, any method you’d prefer; my clients didn’t specify. And you understand what happens if you say no.”

Dean’s eyes slid over to the yellow eyed son of a bitch sitting there sipping his tea and then went back to Rachel. “Yeah. He kills me, long and messy.”

The demon chuckled throatily and Rachel looked amused. So clearly he was missing something here.

The demon leaned across the table, catching his attention. “Why would I kill such a perfectly good toy?” he asked. “I’ve got plans for you. Big plans.”

“What makes you think I’d do anything you wanted?”

The Demon grinned broadly. “I didn’t take you for so much of a fool, Dean. You think your daddy wanted to pin his boys to the walls and bleed you from the inside? You think this poor sack of shit wants to sit here watching you bleed all over the floor?”

“I said that there were worse things than possession, Dean,” Rachel added. “But it works pretty well. Where do you think your first stop would be?”

The demon growled hungrily, answering before Dean’s brain had a chance to catch up to the conversation. “Mmm, _Sammy_. You think he’d notice? Didn’t catch the difference in Dear Old Dad, did he? Not without help, at least, but you? Do you think he’d notice if Big Brother were a little bit … off?”

Dean’d been _off_ for months now. Sam had Christo’d him a bit at first, only half in jest, but lately he’d just … backed off. Before this train wreck with Rachel, Dean would’ve laughed in the demon’s face, but now … Sam might not notice, might not suspect until it was too late. And that just wasn’t acceptable.

“I’ll do it. Where is she?”

“I’ll give you the details later.” Rachel turned back to the demon and spread her hands apologetically. “Seems as though the price is a little too steep for you.”

“For now. He hasn’t killed anyone yet. If he does manage to bluster his way through, well … When you get tired of him, you know where to find me.”

The old man’s mouth snapped open and a heavy, black cloud poured out and down through the table and into the floor. His body shuddered for a moment and then fell facedown on the table. Rachel shook her head.

“Heart attack. Dean, bring that out back and put it in the garage. I’ll deal with it later.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, and Dean?” She twisted her head to look up at him. “You have two days, and then I’m passing you along. Do you understand me?”

He nodded, not trusting his voice. Two days. In two days it would all be over, one way or the other.


	5. Chapter 5

She was sleeping, curled into a twin bed around a ragged old stuffed bear. Her mouth was open a little, and she was snoring, quiet snuffles. Still beautiful, though. Great body. Legs that went all the way up to … Focus. He had to focus for Sammy.

Dean hadn’t been able to decide, although he’d been thinking about it the entire drive over. What was cleaner? What hurt less? But in the end, it probably didn’t matter. Rachel had said that it didn’t matter how he did it—that the clients, whoever they were, didn’t care, but they would eventually. Because this wasn’t a one-time thing, was it? This was commitment. And somewhere down the line he’d be asked to carve someone up the same way he’d carved up that werewolf. Maybe worse.

So he’d brought his gun, and he’d brought a knife. Either would do the trick. If he _was_ doing the trick, which he wasn’t so sure about anymore. There was one other option he hadn’t allowed himself to think too much about until now. He could end it all without hurting anyone else, and it would keep Sammy safe. And it would all be over.

Dean leaned over the bed and brushed his lips across Max’s forehead, lightly enough that he wouldn’t wake her. It wasn’t an action with any logic in it—after all, he hardly knew the girl—but he did it anyway. Her skin tasted like farewell. _Sorry, Sammy,_ he thought. _I'm so sorry._

He left the way he’d come: through her window and down the fire escape. Then he jogged a mile or so until he came to the Impala. Ran his fingertips over her smooth frame.

“Hey, baby, you take good care of Sam, all right? Yeah.” He was talking to his fucking car in the middle of the night. Oh, he was well hinged. Not that it mattered anymore.

He sat down on the hood—get blood on the upholstery, it’ll never come out: have to replace the whole thing—and pulled out his gun.

The moon was out overhead, heavy and full and orange. It looked peaceful up there. Quiet. The gun tasted strange: that coppery, metallic taste. Like blood. Like his life.

 _Love you, Sammy. For you._

The shot was loud in the night, but other than a few bats and an owl, nobody heard it.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Someone was in her room. Max sat up, opening her mouth to scream, and a large hand clamped down over it. She kicked and clawed the way Ellie had told her to if a trick ever went south and felt leather under her fingers: smelled it suddenly in the night. She felt heavy muscles beneath the leather, hard and unyielding. And familiar because she was never going to forget a man that managed to keep it up for five hours, no matter what he’d been hopped up on. Just to make sure, she let her hand travel upward further, to brush against his hair, so soft, kept short with military precision. Traced down to his lips, full and sensuous. Yeah, she remembered him all right. Him and his brother.

“Eamph,” she muttered into his hand, going still. Something low in her stomach clenched in anticipation. She wasn’t going to scream tonight, not from anything unpleasant, anyway. But for some reason he wasn’t moving. Was still holding her against him, one hand clamped over her mouth, the other against her breast—over her heart—in a closed fist. He was holding something in his hand. Money? Did he think she was going to make him pay her?

Max traced his face again, a soothing motion, and this time felt moisture. Was it raining outside? _No,_ she corrected herself as she felt his chest shudder against her back. _He’s crying. Comfort sex, then. Slow and easy. We’ll work our way up from there._

She traced circles on his cheek with one hand, covered the hand on her mouth with the other: not pulling, just letting him know she was there. She was calm. It was okay. His whole body shuddered around her and then he was whispering in her ear, the words low and choked.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I tried to end it, but the bitch won’t let me. I couldn’t—pulled the trigger and it wasn’t even facing me anymore. I shot a goddamned oak tree. Six times. Bitch. Oh, fucking _bitch_. I’m so sorry, Max. I’m so fucking sorry. I have to—for Sammy. I can’t ... can't let it do anything to Sammy.”

The moon was out, Max realized, and casting shadows on her wall. Casting their shadow. But there was something wrong with it. Something was rising out of the larger, hunched mass that was her and Dean: rising and spreading out wide. A shadow of massive wings, fully extended. Something almost too soft for words brushed her cheek and, on the wall, the shadow wings dipped in. She could smell feathers all around her, smothering her.

 _The angel of death,_ she thought. Dean's hand left her chest, drew up near her throat.

“I’m sorry, God, so sorry, forgive me—”

 _Hail Mary Full of Grace…_

Pressure across her throat, warmth, and then a sensation of fading. Distant, unimportant sting. She saw the shadow wings on the wall close around her body, entwined with Dean’s, and then she didn’t see anything anymore.


End file.
